


Kilt Your Green Kirtle

by nautilicious



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Ballad 39: Tam Lin, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bullying, Fairy Tale Retellings, First Kiss, First Time, Fuck Or Die, Haunted Houses, Homophobic Language, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 10:13:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5924602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nautilicious/pseuds/nautilicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Steve gets tricked into a local haunted house, he discovers something right out of a fairy tale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kilt Your Green Kirtle

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [neverwhere](http://neverwhere.london/) for excellent proofreading and continuity checking.
> 
> This story would be nothing without [tiltedsyllogism](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tiltedsyllogism). She's the beta of one of my betas, so I can honestly say that Senpai did, in fact, notice me. I'm immeasurably enriched as a result.

Steve hurried up the library steps. His shoelace had come untied but he didn’t stop to fix it; he was already late to the study session. He hoped it wouldn’t piss off the TA; without her help he might flunk Bio and lose his scholarship. Suddenly his left foot jerked out from under him mid-step. He tripped, careening towards the door just as someone opened it from the other side. Books flew everywhere as they collided. A high-pitched voice exclaimed something Russian-sounding before they both fell to the ground.

A chorus of male laughter erupted behind him. Steve’s stomach clenched. The girl underneath him shoved at his shoulders. “Get off of me!”

He scrambled to his feet. “I’m so sorry,” he said. He held out a hand. She glared at it. She waved him away and got herself standing, but when Steve bent to help pick up the mess of books she let him. Most of them were medical textbooks, he noted.

“Ooooh, is this how you get a date, Rogers?” That was Hodges, no question.

“Yeah, twink has to fall on a hot girl to get some,” said Jackson.

Steve turned to where Hodges, Jackson, and two of their Delta Zeta Kappa goons stood. “Your shoe’s untied,” Hodges said with a smirk. “Better be careful, someone might step on that.”

Steve scowled. Hodges didn’t even notice; he’d turned his attention to the girl. Steve couldn’t blame him; except for Peggy, Steve had never seen anyone prettier. She stood with the poise of a dancer, exuding a graceful confidence that Steve envied.

“Must have been traumatic, getting manhandled by this loser,” Hodges said to her. “Wanna grab some drinks with me and the boys?”

The girl flipped her hair back. “Getting drinks with you would be far more traumatic,” she said, deadpan, “and undoubtedly involve worse manhandling. So, no.”

She gave Steve a brisk once-over that reminded Steve of the way his mother used to check for injuries after playground scrapes. “You’ll want to ice that,” she said. Steve nodded. His cheek throbbed.

“Aw, come on,” Jackson said, stepping closer. She pinned him with a cold, unblinking gaze. Steve wondered how Jackson dared to grab her arm. “We’ll show you a good time, I promise.”

“She said no,” Steve said.

The girl’s mouth twitched. Jackson’s hand should have withered and died under her basilisk stare.

“Keep out of it, douchebag,” Hodges said. “Like you know how to show a girl a good time.”

“At least I don’t have to coerce them to go out with me,” Steve shot back.

“It’s all right,” the girl said. She twisted, and the next thing Steve knew, Jackson was on his knees.

“Fucking bitch!” he yelled.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m going now.” She walked away, fast, purposeful steps carrying her almost to the corner before Jackson even got up. “Sorry I hit you with a door!” she called over her shoulder. Jackson made it two steps in pursuit before Steve blocked him.

“Out of my way,” Jackson said.

“Not a chance.”

Jackson curled his lip, flexing his arms. Steve waited for it. Four against one; he wouldn’t punch first, but by God if they started it he would finish it.

“Jackson, forget it,” Hodge said. “Rogers, fuck off. Don’t you have some nerd shit to do?”

“I can do this all day,” Steve said.

Jackson’s eyes bulged. Steve instinctively dropped his weight, centering himself like Peggy had taught him. Instead of throwing a punch, Jackson swept Steve’s legs. Steve crashed into the cement, abrading his palm and smashing his hip. As much as he wanted to leap to his feet swinging, he couldn’t catch his breath. He curled around himself in preparation for the kicks that would come next.

“Jackson, I’d love to watch you smear this fag into the sidewalk but we’ve got somewhere to be.” Hodges emphasized the last three words.

Steve cracked his eyes to see Hodges gripping Jackson’s shoulder. “Yeah,” he said after a moment.

Hodges led Jackson away. “You’re pathetic, Rogers.”

One of the goons sent Steve an apologetic glance but he fell right in line with the others as they left, joining in the laughter. Steve gasped a bit longer before struggling to stand. The adrenaline zinging through his body made him woozy and a little nauseated. His whole side hurt. He retrieved his backpack and made his way into the library, aching like an old man.

Good thing the girl had taken care of herself, he thought gloomily, because he certainly hadn’t done much. No time to find an ice pack; the study session wasn’t optional. He’d make do with something cold from the vending machine. At least the night could only go up from here.

He should have known better.

He slid into the study session, can of Coke in hand, while the TA’s back was turned. He tried to catch up with the lecture while also digging around in his backpack for his Bio textbook. He didn’t find it. The pack held the spiral notebooks of his class notes, a Kurt Vonnegut novel, and a large cardboard box. No textbooks. When he opened the box, pebbles spilled out onto the desk with a clatter.

The TA turned. “This is Biology, Mr. Rogers, not Geology,” she said.

Steve nodded miserably. “Sorry, ma’am.” He picked up the pebbles as quickly as he could. On the outside of the box someone with terrible handwriting had scrawled: Your Next Class is in Carter Hall.

@)--,---

Steve thumbed on his phone’s flashlight app and shone it over the rusty wrought-iron fence with trepidation. Carter Hall, empty as long as he could remember, loomed in the twilight. Its bones told the story of a home once full of riches and gaiety, with sleek cars depositing well-dressed guests before the imposing doors and music jumbled with conversation carrying across the lawn. Now the only guests were the small animals of the city, the only sound the creaking of fragile walls in the wind.

In the fifth grade, Joe McDougall told Steve that someone had been murdered there. Another kid said it was two people, all chopped up. Even though no one knew the truth, everyone agreed that the place was haunted; daring each other to trespass had been quite popular. _In middle school._ He couldn’t believe that grown men were trying to scare another grown man by hiding his stuff in an abandoned house. 

The sheer disrespect of it made his eyes burn. He didn’t deserve this. He couldn’t change his height; could only get as strong as his body allowed. What would it take for someone to look at him and see beyond his size?

Carter Hall’s jagged walls cast strange shadows in the half-light, and nervous energy skittered down his backbone despite his bravado. Well, maybe Hodges and his fratbro jerks had stashed Steve’s textbooks near the front of the property and he could grab them and get out. He’d muddled through the Bio study session with an aching face and no textbook but he needed to study a few more hours to hammer the material into his skull.

Steve took a deep breath and climbed. Jackson probably thought that Steve couldn’t climb a fence. It wasn’t easy, but he made it. It filled him with pride, even now; he never took for granted how far he’d come after those long years of surgery and physical therapy. The last time someone dared him to climb this fence he’d had asthma and spaghetti arms.

God, he wished he’d slugged Jackson. He’d rather have taken a beating than be screwed with like this.

He walked up the uneven driveway, cobblestones scraping against the bottom of his shoes. Creatures scuttled in a pile of broken bricks, and he smelled trash and dog poop. He didn’t see his books anywhere. Would they have hidden them in the overgrown bushes? No, he figured the thrill for those guys was in forcing Steve to enter the house, just like it had been for the bullies in the fifth grade.

Steve pushed open the front door. The musty-wet scent of aging wood twined with the sweetness of flowers. He moved his phone around with urgency, the thin beam of light falling into the shadows; once he lost the trickle of sunset shining through the hole in the roof it would be too dark to see. The foyer had once been elegant, with fancy wallpaper and a chandelier, but now it spoke to the decades of ruin that had befallen the house. 

Steve stepped farther inside, noting a large staircase towards the rear and open doorways to either side. The bookcase near the stairs had a few volumes at the end of one shelf, incongruous in the otherwise empty foyer. He made his way closer, and yes, that was the distinctive yellow cover of his Bio textbook.

On his way to retrieve them he tripped over something sharp, a thick vegetation tangled low and treacherous. He followed the greenery to the wall and discovered the source of the fragrant smell: a single red-black blossom on a rosebush that sprawled through the broken window and filled one side of the room. The forces of nature now ruled this place, stealing this once-cultivated mansion away from the pollution and noise of the city outside and making it their own.

Steve set his phone on the shelf so that the enclosed space concentrated the light into a tiny lamp. He gathered his books into his pack but instead of leaving, set down the pack and moved closer to the rosebush. He didn’t know why but he craved the rose, felt almost compelled to pick it. Peggy had gotten dumped last week; she’d appreciate a rose from a haunted mansion.

When his fingers broke the stem, a sudden gust of wind swept around him. Lightning flashed despite the cloudless sky. Steve peered upwards in confusion. Suddenly a young man dressed in an old-fashioned military uniform stood in front of him. Steve jumped back, heart pounding.

"Who calls me back to the world of men?" The man’s voice echoed hollowly, as if he called to Steve over a vast distance.

“Where did you come from?” Steve asked, his voice embarrassingly high. He tried to figure out how the guy sneaked up on him. Where had he hidden? Was there a door he hadn’t noticed?

“Who summons me with the rose? Who calls me from the land of the fair and terrible?” Now his voice came low and close, filling the foyer.

Steve stared at him. He stood taller than Steve, military in every inch of his bearing. Long dark hair tumbled around a face with a strong jaw and well-defined cheekbones. His eyes were breathtaking, icy blue and blazing with an implacable will. Steve, struck dumb for a moment by the man’s sheer handsomeness, abruptly registered what the man had said.

“From where?”

The man’s gaze settled on Steve with a nearly palpable weight. “The realm of the Dark Court, the Kingdom of the Unseelie, the Stronghold of Blood and Shadow. Who summons me back to mortal lands?”

Steve fell back on nervous laughter. “Dude, I don’t know what you’ve ingested, but we’re in New York.”

“New York?” His eyes narrowed. “Tell me the date.”

“The 29th. Of October.”

The man kept staring at him. “What year is it.”

Steve stared back. “Uh, 2015?”

The man scanned the room, then glared at Steve. “2015.”

“Yeah. Did you hit your head or…” The guy was apparently too jacked up to know what year it was, but somehow he managed to creep in like a ninja? And why was he dressed for Halloween already? Steve peered closer. Great-Grandad Rogers’ World War II uniform hung in the closet at home, and this guy’s costume looked period-perfect, from the Sergeant's rank insignia down to the shoes.

“I am in New York. In 2015.” Despite the lack of inflection in his voice, he stood still and tense.

Steve nodded. Seriously, where had he come from?

The man said, “I must ask you again for your name. As a show of good faith I will give you mine: James Barnes.”

“Steve Rogers,” he said, reaching out to shake hands automatically. The leather of Barnes’ gloves chilled Steve’s hand.

A scrap of information from a documentary flitted past his mind. A man named James Barnes had led one of the more unofficial regiments, the Howling?—something. Sgt. Barnes had later been declared MIA, the whole situation hush-hush, and it had yet to be declassified. Goosebumps rose on Steve’s forearms. Had Steve not seen this guy’s entrance—the man claiming to be Barnes— because he’d appeared in a flash of lightning?

Steve had been a history buff since the third grade, but he what he loved best were the unsolved mysteries, the dead ends that nobody could ever explain. Steve collected the secrets whispered around fires or on deathbeds, the stories that grew between facts and dates; what if he’d stumbled into one himself? What if _this_ was why some events had no explanation: not a lack of good record-keeping, but flashes of lighting and puffs of smoke? A tingle of excitement raced up his spine.

“Are you telling me you’re Sgt. James Buchanan Barnes? From the 1940s?”

Barnes nodded warily. “You have my full name. Is that how you summoned me?”

“I didn’t. I just picked this rose for my friend Peggy.” When he lifted it to show Barnes he noticed the dark red of the petals looked like dried blood.

Barnes scowled. “I see. He meant to taunt me.”

Steve almost asked Barnes who’d meant to taunt him, and why, and then he came to his senses. This had to be a joke, something to scare him after he got forced into a haunted house by Hodges and his crew. Barnes turned his head to examine the rosebush. He looked even more handsome in profile. It reinforced Steve’s belief that this was a joke because guys that hot never talked to Steve. 

Steve pursed his lips. This prank wasn’t just mean, it was weird. He understood why Hodges had hidden Steve’s textbooks—unfairly enough, Hodges was the top-scoring student in their Bio class and everyone knew that Steve wasn’t. A time-traveling figure from the past, though? What did Hodges hoped to accomplish with this?

Maybe he could defuse the prank by playing along until he figured it out. He crossed his arms. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

“It is not a happy story,” Barnes said. “I was in the war. My unit, we had special training.”

“Yeah, I read about that,” Steve said. They’d spent a week in his Tactical History of Warfare class studying missions accomplished by small units.

Barnes eyes widened. “You...read about me?”

Steve worried for a second that he sounded like a creeper, and then reminded himself it didn’t matter what Barnes thought. “I’m a history student.”

“History,” Barnes said faintly. “It has become history.”

Steve wished he hadn’t said anything. The little muscles around Barnes’ eyes had tightened and unhappy lines etched themselves to either side of his mouth. Barnes sure seemed like a guy that had lost everything he’d ever known. Steve admired his acting skills. “No one knows what happened to you.”

Barnes grimaced. “Then I shall make my note for history. I bore a message of vital importance. My bike skidded on a mountain trail and threw me from the cliff. I lay at the bottom of a gorge, grievously wounded, and waited for death. He came on a black horse, as fair as a Summer’s child and as sweet. I have learned firsthand the dreadful artistry of his cruelty and pleasures, but in that moment I saw only his allure. He promised me healing and rescue, and, most importantly, that my message would be delivered. So I accepted his aid rather than die in the snow.”

Barnes delivered the words with a smooth, even cadence, his words ringing and precise. Steve got the sense he’d told this story many times. Barnes spoke with such conviction it was easy to forget it couldn’t be real.

“He brought me to his kingdom, which lies alongside the mortal realms. Once enfolded in the shining halls he revealed the cost of his aid: my service for seven times seven years, and then again.”

Steve did the math. “Um, a hundred years?”

“Yes,” Barnes said, and the formality in his tone slipped. “It was that or die, and worse, take more soldiers with me by dying with that intel in my pack.”

Steve mentally listed the major events from the last few decades. How would one even catch up on all of that? The whole world had changed, and Christ, the advances in technology alone! Waking up to a world so strange and new would be overwhelming. Steve suddenly remembered that he was just playing along, that this was a prank. Which was a relief, because he’d started to feel bad for Barnes for a minute there.

A quick rasp of breath distracted Steve from his woolgathering. Barnes stood unnaturally still, but he was blinking too fast.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked.

Barnes shook his head as though to clear it. “I can’t quite remember...the intel. Do you know what it was?”

His voice had shifted from his storyteller’s cadence, becoming looser, more casual. More emotional, too; after of the cold delivery of his tragic tale, Barnes had totally changed his tone. So much for him being a good actor.

“I never read about it,” Steve said cautiously. He was having trouble figuring out the point of the prank. Was Barnes supposed to catch Steve ignorant of some historical detail? “Just about you and your team. The Howling something.”

“Commandos,” Barnes answered immediately, and then he blinked. “Yeah, the Howling Commandos.” A smile crossed Barnes’ lips, there and gone again. Once Barnes said the name Steve remembered it, too. Though that didn’t prove anything; everyone had heard of the Howling Commandos.

Steve abruptly tired of the charade. He’d expected a call to action: “If you climb the Dean’s Tower in your underpants I’ll be set free!” Or something. But Barnes seemed to have lost the thread of his narrative and Steve was getting cold. At least he’d have a good story to tell Peggy.

“I should get going,” he said. “It was, uh, interesting to meet you.”

“And you,” Barnes said. “I regret we shall not cross paths again.”

Yeah, I bet, Steve thought. Until the next time the Delta Zeta Kappas decide they want my seat in the dining hall, or that I shouldn’t be allowed to breathe the same air as one of their girlfriends. He hadn’t noticed Barnes with those guys before, but perhaps he was new. He’d probably see Barnes again; pledges did all sorts of things to earn their way. As proved by the current nonsense.

Steve retrieved his phone, slung his bag over his shoulder.

“Wait,” Barnes said.

Steve raised his brows. Maybe he’d hit the punchline of the joke, after all.

“May I have the rose?” Barnes asked.

Steve blinked. Nothing about this made sense, Christ. Steve decided right then that he wanted to get out of there way more than he wanted to give Peggy the flower, so he handed it over. Barnes took it almost reverently. Steve went out the door and Barnes didn’t follow.

@)--,---

Steve made it all the way back to his apartment before he thought to check he had everything. Sure enough, he didn’t have his history book. Steve sighed. Jackson was a thug, but Hodges was clever: Steve wouldn’t put it past him to have scattered Steve’s things around the property. Of course he’d pull something like this. Steve would have to go back. He would definitely ice his face first, though.

Sam’s phone went to voicemail and Peggy was covering a late shift at the cafe. She rushed him off the line before he could tell her about his first escapade, much less convince her to join him for a second, so two hours later he climbed the fence and retraced his steps, alone, fuming the whole way. At least this time he’d brought a jacket and a cheap plastic LED lantern. When Steve pushed open the creaky door he went straight to the bookshelves, hoping that he’d just missed his history book the first time. He hadn’t; it turned up on the floor near the stairs. He tucked it into his backpack with relief.

“Rogers,” a voice said from the darkness.

Steve yelped and dropped the lantern. “Shit!”

A gloved hand picked it up. The light skittered over Barnes’ face.

“What the hell are you still doing here?”

“I can’t leave.” Barnes offered him the lantern, and Steve took it back with shaking hands.

“What, you forgot your flashlight or something?” Steve should have checked to make sure Barnes had a flashlight before he left, Delta Zeta Kappa jerk or not. But it wasn’t that dark; Barnes should have been able to find his way out.

“No. I displeased the King and in punishment he bound me to this place. It pleases him for me to waste my last years guarding an abandoned stronghold.”

Back to the weird formal speaking, Steve noted. Adrenaline made his voice sharp. “Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but you can drop the fairytale crap.”

“It is an outlandish tale,” Barnes said. “To modern ears, especially. But I swear to you, it is the truth.”

Steve’s mind raced. Who the hell committed so hard to a prank that they waited hours for another go? And how had Barnes known Steve would come back?

Had Barnes seriously been taken into another world and forced into servitude? Steve should doubt him; it sounded crazy. And yet, Steve’s grandmother had brought stories from the Old Country full of otherworldly beings, trickery and confusion. Steve had believed them, when he was a little kid—and then when he was older he decided they were all made up, because that was what you were supposed to do. But Barnes's story sounded a lot like something his grandmother might have told him when he was still small enough to sit by the foot of her rocking chair and drink up every word.

The alternative was to believe that Hodges and his crew would go to this much trouble to humiliate Steve. It seemed out of character when they could just harass him like they had earlier. Which of them had enough history knowledge to pull off something like this? And where had they found the uniform? Or found someone who looked exactly like a man who had disappeared seventy years ago?

“You’re telling me that you made a deal with the King of...of Faerie?” If it was a joke, now Barnes would laugh, or point to a hidden camera, because Steve had utterly fallen for it.

Barnes nodded. “He would not call himself that, but yes.”

“And he bound you here to punish you. Where we’re standing. It’s part of Faerie?” Many of those stories were not nice. Steve really didn't want them to be true.

“We are not in the realms Underhill,” Barnes clarified. “But this place belongs to the King. Another deal in which he got the better end of it, of course.” His mouth twisted. “It stands as a wild place in the middle of the city, a place that humans can’t reclaim.”

Steve considered it. He’d heard periodic talk about demolishing Carter Hall to build something else; he’d followed the news when they’d planned to build an art museum. When it hadn’t happened, he’d assumed the process had gotten bogged down in red tape.

“Carter Hall has been an eyesore for years,” Steve said thoughtfully.

“The King likes to ruin things,” Barnes said.

If Steve had been an actor, he would have delivered that line full of bitterness or despair. But Barnes said it so stripped of inflection that the hair on the back of Steve’s neck rose. When Barnes spoke of the King his eyes went dead. Barnes had survived something, Steve knew that in his bones.

God help him, Steve believed him.

Even though his asthma hadn’t kicked up since he was twelve, Steve feared for a long, horrible minute he might have an attack right then. He didn’t even carry an inhaler anymore. He took a few shaky gulps of air before old habits kicked in and he stabilized his breathing. Barnes watched him curiously.

Steve took another slow, careful breath and let it sink in, stood breathing until the silence grew uncomfortable. “So you’re stuck here,” he said at last.

“Yeah.” Barnes said. “It’s...been a long time.” 

Steve imagined endless, lonely years in a strange country. The King sounded like a tyrant, snatching Barnes up like a new toy and not letting him go. Gran’s stories had little to say about kindness, and some of them implied an amount of licentiousness that Steve found frightening when he thought of Barnes enduring it. Steve leaned forward, impulsively touched on Barnes’ arm. “It’s okay. I’ll help you.”

Barnes flinched away from the touch and Steve let his hand fall away.

“That is kind, but you can do nothing.” He glanced up and down Steve’s frame, his expression neutral. Steve bristled. He’d put on a fair bit of muscle after the heart surgery, so he was wiry instead of skinny, but he’d never be tall. Barnes had a good six inches on him, for sure, and probably an enviable set of muscles under that uniform.

“I’m stronger than I look,” Steve said. “What, I need a magic sword or something?”

Barnes made a harsh, abrupt sound, almost a laugh. “No, if anything I’m the magic sword,” he said.

“Am I supposed to wield you?” Steve said without thinking.

The stern lines of Barnes’ mouth melted into a boyish grin, complete with a truly unfair flash of dimple. It took years from his face. The grin both razzed Steve for his double entendre and invited him to make something of it. Steve suspected Barnes had cut a swath through dance halls with that knowing charisma, maybe with a woman on each arm.

“What do you mean, then?” Steve asked, trying not to look so flustered.

Barnes grew serious, his gaze drifting off into the distance. He recited: “I am the Winter Soldier, the weapon of the King of Shadows. Tempered in pain and blood, I stand at his left hand to shape the centuries. Darkness wields me against the foes Underhill, in the worlds of Men, and all the worlds between. I will not break.”

He grew taller as he spoke. The light bent around him, distorting and weaving itself into a cloak of shadow. Fear roiled in Steve’s belly. Barnes stood there, creepy as fuck, like he could stand there forever. Like he already had. Steve realized he was holding his breath and released it quietly.

Barnes’ eyes, as cold a blue as Steve had ever seen, focused again on Steve. “This I say when he summons me. I say my oath and he sends me out to kill.”

Barnes inhaled so deeply that his uniform expanded. He blew it out, shifted back into his habitual stance. It looked almost casual in comparison. The shadows settled. In a moment he looked more or less like a person again, though he still seemed out of place.

“Okay,” Steve said. “That sounds, well. Intense is the first word that comes to mind.” And awful, he thought, but he doubted that saying so would make Barnes feel any better. “What can I do?”

“I have committed terrible crimes,” Barnes said flatly.

“That’s not what I asked,” Steve said. “And I don’t get the impression you had much of a choice about it.”

Barnes bit his lip, an unexpectedly endearing gesture. “My doom is upon me.”

Steve wondered if the King insisted that the members of his court pull their dialogue from bad fantasy novels. He kept hoping Barnes would bust out some old-timey slang. “Tell me the rest.”

“The King keeps his enemies at bay by sacrificing a mortal of the Court every seven years. I was the King’s favorite but—someone has taken my place. In two nights, on All Hallow’s Eve, the Host will spread their shadow across the land before they slit my throat at the very gates of Hell.”

Steve’s fingers tightened on the lantern handle. The cheap metal bent, scored a stinging line down his thumb. He barely noticed. Barnes had served faithfully, and if Steve read correctly into that “pain and blood” stuff, he’d been tortured, too. And they’d throw him aside for a shift in the King’s whims? Nearly a hundred years of service, repaid with death. What a goddamn tragedy.

Steve had just met Barnes and he already mourned the loss. History remembered Barnes as a kind man and a good leader, and Steve wanted to hear about those years—any self-respecting history student would—but it was more than that. Steve’s chest ached with how much he wanted to know the man the documentary hadn’t shown, the one who smiled at Steve with mischief and humor.

“There’s really nothing I can do?” Steve asked.

“No,” Barnes said, with such finality that Steve half-expected him to vanish back into the mists, adventure over, time to go home. Instead, Barnes said quietly, “But maybe you could tell me a little about what I missed? Did we win the war?”

“Oh, man,” Steve said, “okay.”

Steve found the relevant chapters in his history text and let Barnes thumb through them while he held the lantern. Barnes read and Steve, with nothing to do but look at the pictures upside down, watched him. Barnes had no stubble, despite the lateness of the hour. The furrow between his brows deepened as he read, but he had smile lines, too. Steve didn’t imagine Barnes had smiled much during his captivity so those must be from his life before. Barnes’ downcast eyes showcased his long lashes. When Steve caught himself staring at the curve of Barnes’ full lips he looked away.

Barnes read quickly, almost speed-reading, and afterward he asked Steve enough questions that Steve felt like he was taking his midterm early. Even though Steve had watched a lot of documentaries, some of the stuff Barnes mentioned went way outside Steve’s knowledge.

Steve didn’t keep track of the time, but eventually the silvery glow of an autumn moon augmented the lantern light. Barnes remembered more about his time in the war as the conversation went on, especially when Steve asked direct questions. Steve tried to memorize the anecdotes Barnes shared. If Steve would be the only person to get Barnes’ story, he would witness it with the memory and regard of a trained historian.

After a while, Steve’s legs got tired so he plopped himself down on the steps. He’d talked enough that his face had started to hurt again. Barnes towered over him, his stance as formal as any soldier on review.

“Come sit down?” Steve invited.

Barnes did, retaining his impressive posture even after settling on the stairs. The steps still had some grungy, torn carpeting. Steve chose to ignore what might grow in its fibers. It was better than sitting on the cold marble floor.

“I almost made it to the end,” Barnes said. “Just another year, and I could have—” His lips flattened into a line. “I’m glad most of the Commandos made it.”

He could have gone home, Steve thought. To the three sisters and two brothers that spoke about him in that documentary. If any of them were still alive, would they want to know what Steve knew? No, it seemed kinder to leave old wounds undisturbed. He doubted they’d believe him, anyway.

Steve wished he could tell someone that Barnes was a hero twice over, a survivor of two different wars. He deserved every accolade. Barnes, at Steve’s age, had already laid his life down for his men and his country while Steve had yet to do anything meaningful with his. Sure, Steve stood up to bullies, but it only ever got him a black eye, while Barnes had helped save the whole world. It humbled him.

“Some of them got families, right?” Barnes asked. “Jones always wanted a bunch of kids.”

“Yes,” Steve said.

Barnes nodded decisively. “Good. It’s good. I don’t mind so much that I didn’t get out, so long as my men did, got to have some kind of life after.”

“You were a good commander.” Steve thought of his father, dying to protect his own men. Barnes had, in essence, done the same.

“Nah, never a commander,” Barnes said. “A Sergeant, and that’s more important. Commander’s likely to screw things up. The Sarge, he keeps things running, and that’s what I did.”

Steve leaned back on his elbows and looked at the sky. He had so many questions. He wanted to bring Barnes more books, maybe his tablet, to show Barnes the world he’d sacrificed himself to preserve. He wanted to bring Sam and Peggy, too; wanted them to meet the man that Steve would mourn. “Can I come back tomorrow?”

“No. The rose summoned me, and there aren’t any more flowers. I’ve only got tonight.”

Steve couldn’t make out the rosebush in the darkness, but he’d only seen the one blossom. “Why did the King make it possible for you to—cross, I guess?”

“Who knows?” Barnes said. “The King enjoys his little games. I didn’t remember anything until you came, and now I know what I lost. That’s probably what he wanted.”

“Oh, God, Barnes, I’m sorry.” Steve’s throat felt tight.

“No, no,” Barnes said. “I bet he thought it would make me suffer, but I’m glad to know. We won the war, and my friends survived, and the future turned out okay, right?”

“It’s not fair,” Steve said, and his voice wavered. Barnes leaned over to nudge Steve with his shoulder and the shock of the touch made Steve forget what he might have said next.

“It is fair, sort of. I mean, I don’t want to die, but I’d rather die than stay in the Court. The more I remember the madder I get, but I did terrible things, Steve. Seems like I ought to have to pay for them.”

“It’s not your fault,” Steve said.

Barnes shrugged.

“Barnes—” Steve said, drawing breath to argue.

“Call me Bucky.”

“What?”

“My friends called me Bucky, and I haven’t had a friend in a long time.”

It hurt to think that Bar—Bucky had spent all that time suffering, without even one friend.

“You ever been to Coney Island?” Bucky asked.

Steve wanted to dig in his heels, to convince Bucky that no-one could resist seventy years of torture and that he shouldn’t blame himself for whatever he’d done while under a freaking _enchantment_ , but Bucky clearly didn’t want to talk about it.

“Yeah,” he said instead. “Got sick on the roller coasters once, which seems to be a rite of passage.”

Bucky smirked. “My brothers would go until they puked, preferably on each other.”

“People still go there and puke,” Steve told him.

“Only got sick the once,” Bucky bragged, “no matter how many hot dogs my brothers dared me to eat.”

“Tell me about them,” Steve asked.

“It’s a little hazy.” Bucky closed his eyes. “The boys were younger. Twins.” He opened his eyes and the floodgates opened with them. “Robert always insisted on being ‘Robert,’ and Joseph had to be ‘Joe.’ They had that white-blond hair that little kids get, and my baby sister loved it so much she cried when they outgrew it. Looked kind of like yours, after.”

Steve nodded. He’d been towheaded as a kid, too.

“Anyway, this pleased my dad to no end, because the rest of us looked like our Ma. The girls liked me well enough, especially when they got old enough for me to take them to dances, but they doted on those boys. Made them little lapdogs for a few years. Dressed them up in sailor suits. The boys let them, if you can believe that!”

The fixed line of Bucky’s shoulders slouched. It was the most relaxed Steve had seen him yet. He imagined Bucky sitting on a stoop, talking idly with a friend as they watched the comings and goings of the neighborhood. Steve had spent a good part of his childhood doing the same; it didn’t much matter that their stoop-sitting days were decades apart.

“Eventually the boys got older and came to their senses. They wanted to do guy things with me but I was already working and couldn’t spend all day with two kids, you know?”

“No,” Steve said. “Didn’t have any siblings. Always wanted some, though. Having a big family sounds great.”

Bucky gave something that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t sounded so sad. “I didn’t think so then. The house wasn’t big enough for all of us crammed in there, especially after the twins came. Couldn’t hear yourself think, everyone in your business all the time.”

“Sounds like a dorm,” Steve joked. Though during the two years Steve spent in the dorms nobody had been particularly interested in Steve’s business. He vastly preferred living with Sam in their small apartment to being alone in the crowd of on-campus housing.

“Army wasn’t any better,” Bucky said. “Barracks were just as cramped and crazy, and the people didn’t care about each other half as much. Not until the Commandos, anyway.”

“They sound like a great bunch of guys.” Steve rubbed at his cheek. He’d hoped to find a group of close-knit friends like that when he went to college, especially since no one there had known him when he’d been sick, but it hadn’t worked out that way. He had Peggy, though, and Sam, so he supposed he was doing all right for himself.

“You look like you could use someone on your side,” Bucky said. “No offense.”

“What do you mean?”

Did he look so pathetic Bucky thought he didn't have any friends?

Bucky tapped his own cheek. “You walk into a door or something?”

“Oh,” Steve said. “Yeah. I bruise easily.”

“What happened?”

Steve shrugged. “Just these jerks at school. They like to throw their weight around.”

“And you have to get in their way, don’t you?” Bucky shook his head, looking almost fond. “I knew you were a stand-up guy. ”

“I just don’t like bullies,” Steve said.

“Let me guess, there was a dame involved?” 

Steve scuffed his shoe against the floor. “Well, yeah.”

“Like I said.”

Shame twisted through Steve. Compared to Bucky, no way. Ineffectually standing up for a girl who could save herself was nothing like saving the world from tyranny. Steve couldn’t be a hero like that even if he tried.

“You know how to throw a punch?” Bucky asked.

Bucky might as well have decked him for how the hurt flared behind Steve’s breastbone. “Just because I’m short—” Steve began indignantly.

“No, no,” Bucky said, throwing his hand up to hold back the tirade. “I meant—there’s hitting someone to get them off you, and hitting them so they don’t get back up again.”

Steve crossed his arms. “I know how to hit someone.”

Bucky pinched his lips together. “I know you can hold your own. I only meant that I could show you some tricks.”

“Yeah,” Steve said after a minute. “I’d like that.”

“These guys have any training?”

“Hodges is in the ROTC, if you can believe that,” Steve said. At Bucky’s blank look he clarified. “Junior military. He wants to go into the Army.”

“Sounds like a poor excuse for a soldier.”

“I’ve always thought so,” Steve said. It rankled that a small-minded asshole like Hodges got to be tall and fit and on track to be an officer when Steve had been rejected from enlistment by all of four branches of the military. “He’s not a real soldier, like you.”

Bucky acted as though he hadn’t heard the compliment. “Come on.” He stood, offered Steve his hand. Steve let Bucky pull him to his feet. He ignored the twinge in his hip.

“Here’s how to deal with somebody punching you.” Bucky stepped through a series of moves, ducking imaginary blows, socking an opponent in the nose and then elbowing him in the sternum.

“And if someone grabs you from behind—” He mimed dropping his weight into a slump to throw an attacker off balance and then knocking him out with a blow to the temple. “Want to try it?”

Steve did. They stepped through it slowly, Bucky showing Steve how to place his feet and weight. Peggy had practiced with Steve after she took a self-defense course, but she’d never taught him anything like this seamless mix of dodges and strikes. He’d always struggled to hold his own in a fight; now maybe he could fight until it was finished.

Bucky ran him through the moves until Steve began to sweat. Bucky wasn’t even breathing heavily. He clapped Steve’s shoulder. “You’re a quick learner.”

“You’re a good teacher,” Steve said.

Steve dug out his water bottle and passed it to Bucky. He resolutely did not watch Bucky’s mouth as he drank.

The raspy, undulating sound of the TARDIS echoed in the room as Steve’s phone announced a text. Bucky narrowed his eyes at the pocket of Steve’s jeans.

Steve said quickly, “It’s okay; it’s just my phone.”

“Your…phone?”

Steve retrieved it from his pocket. He opened his mouth to explain, remembered how 1940s military phones worked, and closed his mouth. He couldn’t even use a Star Trek analogy.

“Did you ever see the Flash Gordon films?” Steve asked after a minute. He’d loved the 80’s remake, so he’d taken the opportunity to watch some of the original black and white films when the magic of the Internet made them available.

“A few,” Bucky said.

“Okay, so do you remember Ming using a screen to communicate with his minions? His face would appear on it and they would talk, in real-time, across vast distances?”

Bucky nodded. “You telling me you can do that now? With _that_?”

“Yes,” Steve said. “And make phone calls to people all over the world. And send short messages, like telegrams. Longer ones, too. Letters that arrive instantly.”

Bucky whistled. “It’s so small.”

Steve laughed. “All the small things are bigger, and the big things are smaller.”

“I read a bunch of the pulps when I was a kid,” Bucky said. “How much of that stuff do you have nowadays?”

Steve tilted his head, considering. “A lot, actually,” he said. “A network for instant communication. Computers everywhere—we call these phones but it’s really a computer; it has a camera and a radio and all kinds of stuff. Digital everything, like books on a screen, or being able to draw a comic strip on a piece of electronic paper. Accurate maps from cameras in space.”

“Rocket ships?”

“Yeah. We sent men to the moon.”

Bucky paced a few steps back and forth before he got himself under control. “Show me,” he said.

Steve brought up footage of the moon landing, stood so Bucky could peer over his shoulder.

“This is real?” Bucky said, his voice rough. “Not a movie?”

Steve swallowed. Anything showing humanity’s exploration of space made him teary-eyed. Like most kids of his generation, he’d wanted to go into space. Bucky had read pulps and watched Flash Gordon; maybe he'd longed for spaceflight, too. Bucky should have gotten to see it happen, and he’d missed it.

“It’s real,” Steve said.

“Tell me everything,” Bucky said.

Steve did, rambling for at least 30 minutes before he pulled up another NASA video. Watching it, Steve got caught up in the struggles and triumphs of the early space program, as always. Introducing it to Bucky made him view it with new eyes, made it even more miraculous. He could easily get addicted to showing Bucky new things.

Steve caught his breath, drawn away from the drama of Apollo 13 by Bucky’s closeness, the hard line of him warming Steve’s back. Bucky smelled delicious, a little like dried roses, dark and spicy. Steve wondered what would happen if he leaned back, if he drew Bucky’s strong arms around him...he gave himself a mental shake. He couldn’t avoid being attracted to Bucky—his hotness crossed species barriers, even the King of Faerie had taken notice—but this was probably his most inappropriate crush on a straight guy yet.

Steve had managed to spend long stretches of the evening not thinking about what would happen on Halloween, but the shadowy current of truth ran beneath every moment: in two days, Bucky would be dead. Bucky was exactly the kind of friend Steve had always wanted, and it carved a cold, hollow place inside of him to know that they would only know each other this one night.

Steve forced himself to focus on the phone in his hands. When the video ended, he stepped away. “Do you want to watch it again?” he asked, offering Bucky the phone.

Bucky shook his head. “It’s a lot,” he said. “I haven’t had this much rattling around in my head for a while.”

“We can talk about something else,” Steve said.

“Tell me about you.”

“Seventy years of history on tap, and that’s what you want?” 

Bucky gave him a crooked grin.

“Uh, okay. I grew up in Brooklyn,” Steve said.

“No kidding?” Bucky said. When Steve nodded, Bucky said, “Small world.”

“Different part than it sounds like you did,” Steve clarified. “It was just my mom and me."

“That’s tough,” Bucky said. Steve tried to shrug it off but Bucky went on. “Knew guys who didn’t have dads, on account of the first war, and I saw how hard it was.”

“My dad died in combat right after I was born, so I never knew him,” Steve said. “I’ve got his medals, though. I wanted to go into the military, too, but I’m not really built for it.” He gave a little half-laugh, making sure it sounded like a joke. He didn't want Bucky’s pity.

“You believe we thought there might not be wars, after?” Bucky asked. “Thought people might have learned a lesson, after all that.”

“Seems like there's always something to fight about,” Steve said. He hooked his thumbs into his back pockets. “Even just the day-to-day, sometimes. My ma was a nurse. She used to say she went to war every shift.”

“A nurse,” Bucky said, and he sounded strange.

“Yeah, at a hospital?”

“A nurse,” Bucky said again, and went rigid. His eyes darted from place to place before rolling back in his head. He staggered, and Steve doubted he’d be able to catch him if he fell, but Bucky caught himself. He stood, panting.

“Bucky, are you okay?”

Bucky put both hands to his head. “The intel,” he said, still fighting to steady his breathing. “I’ve been trying to remember, I—the intel, the V-2s, did the message get through?”

Steve said, “I don’t know, what was the message? I’ve read about the V-2s, but not what—”

“There was this nurse,” Bucky interrupted, “she wanted to defect, and I found out about the rockets, and they were gonna change the war, that’s why I was cornering on a frozen mountain road like a goddamned idiot—”

Steve nodded. “Okay, okay, when was this?”

“February, 1944.”

Steve thought back to his World War II seminar. “I think the Germans bombed Paris using the V-2 rockets in September that year, and it surprised everyone. So I guess no-one got your intel?”

“I don’t understand,” Bucky said. “The King promised that the information in my pack would be revealed to my allies. He is forsworn.” Bucky seized Steve’s arm, his eyes so bright he looked feverish. “Don’t you see?” he said. “A broken promise makes him weak! I can demand justice.”

Steve had a sinking feeling in his gut. All those stories his grandmother told about the Good Neighbors—she flat-out refused to call them faeries—every story mentioned their tricky, clever ways.

“Did the King say _when_?”

Bucky stared at him a moment, uncomprehending, and then the light in his face died as quickly as it had come.

“I mean, I might be wrong…” Steve shut up. He didn’t think he was wrong. It made horrible sense: the King sent Bucky back into the mortal realms to regain his memories and complete the letter of their bargain while disregarding the spirit of it. The King’s honor remained intact, with the added benefit of subjecting Bucky to one last torment. Win/win for the King.

Bucky released of Steve’s arm. “No, you're right. You said you’d help me. You declared yourself my ally, and I revealed the message to you.” He clenched his fist, pounded it against his thigh.

Steve nearly reached for him before thinking better of it. He gingerly touched the scratch on his thumb instead. It had stopped bleeding. He wished the lantern’s metal had bitten deeper; this sorrow should scar.

Bucky began to tremble. Steve couldn’t help reaching out then, drawing Bucky carefully into a hug. “Hey, no, it’s okay.”

Bucky stiffened, and for a second Steve worried he’d get shoved away, but Bucky’s arms hesitantly wrapped around Steve’s back. Steve held him as close as he dared. Slowly the fine tremors eased.

“You don’t know what it was like.” Bucky’s voice came low and uneven, as if the words wounded him. “He took everything. I couldn’t...the force of him, you can’t imagine. I followed every order. Even when it hurt.”

“Can’t you run away?” Steve already knew the answer. The man he’d come to know would have done everything in his power to escape. However, the man he’d come to know had spent most of his enslavement as an amnesiac unable to think for himself. “Now that you remember, there has to be something,” Steve insisted.

Bucky inhaled sharply. “It’s impossible. Everyone who loved me is dead.”

“What’s impossible?” Steve said.

Bucky said nothing. When Steve pulled back to see his expression, Bucky slid out of the embrace. Steve’s arms felt empty, hands helpless by his side.

“What’s impossible?” Steve asked again. “If there’s any chance—”

"I can only be saved by my true love.” Bucky said in a rush. “Just like every story you’ve ever heard.” He scrubbed his hands over his face.

A flare of hope flashed through Steve. “That sounds like something,” he said.

“I don’t see how.”

“What about affection and concern for one’s fellow man? Because I have that.”

The corner of Bucky’s lips lifted, but he shook his head.

“What does true love even mean?” Steve asked. “Love isn’t quantifiable, there’s not a measurement you can cite to show whether your feelings are, I don’t know, 10 whatsits on the love scale. Who determines whether it’s quote true love unquote?” Steve made the air quotes sign.

Bucky looked at him oddly. “I guess I don’t exactly know.”

Steve thought it over. “In every fairytale I’ve ever read, the way to win is through noble, selfless action. In the Twelve Wild Swans, the princess stops talking for seven years and makes shirts out of nettles.” Steve shifted from foot to foot, ideas rolling through his mind. “Or in the Little Mermaid, she gives up her voice. And dies later, so okay, not the best example. In Frozen it’s an act of self-sacrifice, though does Frozen count? It’s so modern—”

Bucky did smile at him then. “Are you even listening to yourself? You’re talking about storybooks.”

“You’re living in one, you’d think you’d have more respect for the genre.”

Bucky’s smile faded. “The stories you said, if they even happened, you only know the human versions. It’s not going to give you the whole picture.”

“You’re the one that said your true love could win you free,” Steve pointed out. “Why did you say that?”

Bucky crossed his arms. “I didn’t make it up, there’s a ritual. It ties you back to the mortal world. Changes your allegiance.”

“Has anyone ever done it?”

“People try to escape, and fail,” Bucky said flatly. “The King makes a big deal out of those...” His eyes went blank, his shoulders hunching.

“Bucky?”

“I think I...I punished...” He paled, blinking rapidly.

Steve gripped Bucky’s arm. “Hey, look at me.”

Bucky didn’t respond. Steve reached up and put his palm cautiously against Bucky’s cheek. Bucky’s attention snapped back to Steve. His pupils contracted, the blue-gray of his eyes gone almost silver.

Steve moved his hand to Bucky’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Buck. You’re here, in New York. I’m here. Don’t think about it.”

Bucky turned his arm to grip Steve’s. If he held Steve any harder it would bruise, but Steve kept murmuring reassurances. After a while, Bucky exhaled carefully, shifted his eyes away. “Okay,” he said.

Steve dropped his hand from Bucky’s shoulder but kept their arms clasped. “So there’s a ritual, and your true love has to perform it, right?”

Bucky nodded. Steve pursed his lips. “Let’s try it.”

Bucky stepped away from him. “What is there to try? I appreciate the sentiment, but I doubt brotherly love counts.”

Steve made a humming sound. That reminded him of something. “Agape, Phila, that other one, and Eros,” he said, lost in thought. “I bet it’s Eros. It’s always True Love’s Kiss. Or.” Steve’s mouth went dry.

“What?” Bucky asked.

Steve had read multiple versions of the stories assigned in his freshman folklore class, mostly to impress Peggy. He’d read enough of her papers since then to have picked up a few things. His mind raced.

“C’mon, Steve, what are you thinking?” Bucky tried to catch his eye. Steve wouldn’t look at him.

“I have an idea, but—” Steve cleared his throat. “I don’t...there’s really no easy way to ask this.”

“Just ask.”

“Promise you won’t get mad.”

“Steve. Spit it out.”

Steve bit his lip. “Are you in any way into guys?”

“Into…?”

“Uh, attracted to. Physically. Like for sex.”

Both of Bucky’s eyebrows rose. Steve chose to interpret it as surprise rather than offense, but he couldn’t tell for sure. Queers had suffered during the 40’s even more than today, and he’d just implied that Bucky might be one. He half-expected to get punched.

“Why do you ask?”

Steve’s cheeks heated. “If you’ve got no-one else in this world to love you, then I gotta step up.”

Bucky looked incredulous. “We just met, you can’t be my true love. It’s a spell. It’s specific.”

Steve swallowed. Having just met did not keep somebody from feeling like they were maybe falling for a guy, but there was no way he would mention that now. He ran a hand through his hair.

“Okay, obviously I’m just theorizing, since I never knew spells existed until today, but I do know that the old stories tell us stuff about the cultures that wrote them. So we can maybe use that to guess how the spell defines love and alliances.” He wished he’d read Peggy’s papers more closely. She should be here instead of Steve. She could explain it better, and she had the right kind of body, too. God, Peggy and Bucky would get on like gangbusters. If only Bucky had another night.

“In modern interpretations there’s always a kiss. It’s part of how the hero wins. The kiss marks the completion of the story and the consummation of a happy ending. But it’s a stand-in for sex.”

Bucky looked impassive. Steve sweated despite the cool evening. “Sex and love and happily ever after are all tangled together, even today, when people maybe ought to know better. I mean, not everyone thinks that way, but it’s an idea that’s been around forever. Seems like it would fit in with those kinds of spells. How else would you measure it? Sex seals the deal, you know?”

Bucky nodded slowly. “Birth and death. Sex ties you to the world.”

“That too,” Steve said. “Sex is a key part of the human experience.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “When the Fair Folk have sex it isn’t the same at all. The way they live in their bodies is different than us.”

That distracted Steve utterly. Had Bucky...? Was that part how the King tortured him? Or had he gone decades without? Christ.

“So,” Bucky began.

Steve felt the tips of his ears going pink, but he knew he had it right. “So if we have sex it might count as an act of true love for the spell, and tie you back to mortal existence, and it’s even an act of sacrifice for me to, um.” Steve faltered to a stop, then blurted: “I haven’t done it with a guy.”

Bucky stared at him, eyes wide. “I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble,” he said at last.

It took Steve a few seconds to get his meaning. “Oh, no, it’s not illegal anymore.”

Bucky’s mouth actually dropped open. “Not—you mean, people don’t beat up on queers anymore?”

Steve managed a bitter smile. “Some people absolutely do still beat up on queers. But two men, or two women, can hold hands in public, live together romantically, even get married.”

Bucky whistled. “I never would have thought.”

“A lot has changed,” Steve said, and then kicked himself for stating the extremely obvious. Silence spun out between them until Steve cleared his throat. “So, uh, was that your only objection?”

“It was my biggest objection, yeah.” Bucky’s dimples flashed. “How come someone as good-lookin’ as you doesn’t have the girls lined up down the street? Or guys, I guess.” Bucky’s posture had softened, and if Steve had seen that ladykiller smile aimed at someone else he might have believed it genuine. Aimed at Steve, though? It had to be a line. People that looked like Bucky weren’t into little guys like Steve.

“I had some medical stuff going on,” Steve said once he’d regained his composure. “I didn’t make much of an impression on anyone.”

“You made an impression on me,” Bucky said, low and warm.

Man, Bucky had moves. It was kind for him to flirt, to make it feel less weird that Steve had basically thrown himself at him. Did Bucky even like men? Well, sometimes straight guys would mess around, so long as they were the ones on top. Besides, Bucky didn’t have any other options.

“So, um,” Steve said, not sure what should happen next.

Bucky’s charm turned down a notch. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I’m honored that you offered, but I don’t know why you’d do this. Your first time, that should be something special.”

“I’m not a virgin, I’ve done some stuff,” Steve said, and then realized how defensive he sounded. “Look, none of this is your fault. If this can save you, there’s no way I’m not gonna do it." Steve resisted the urge to put his hands in his pockets. "Besides, you’re so far out of my league I’d be a fool not to try for it.”

Bucky squeezed Steve’s shoulder. “It’s you that’s out of my league, pal,” he said. “I’ve never had anyone ever stand up for me like this.” He looked into Steve’s eyes, his gaze heavy with emotion. Steve thought Bucky might kiss him, but instead he spoke again. “The way the spell goes is that, on All Hallow’s Eve, you have to bind me to the mortal realms, bind me with such force that the King has to let me go.”

Steve laughed, grateful to hear one thing he knew he could do. “If a stubborn cuss is what you need, I’m qualified.”

“The ritual is complicated,” Bucky said. “Let me tell you all of it, so you understand what you’re getting into.”

“I’m sure,” Steve said. “I want to do this.”

“First, you’ll need holy water." Bucky went on to give him directions to a certain crossroads, listing items to gather and actions to perform, but he kept brushing his thumb against Steve’s collarbone all the while. It made it difficult to concentrate.

“Wait,” Steve said, and got a piece of paper. He wrote everything down, asking a few clarifying questions—he didn’t own any land; was earth from the flowerbed he tended outside of his apartment good enough?—and tucked the note in his pocket.

They listened to the wind whistle through the broken windows for a while before Bucky spoke. “This is a lousy place to do this. You deserve...they still have fancy hotels, right?”

“Yeah, they do, but I don’t mind doing it here. This will mean something; it’s not just about getting laid, it’s important. It’s a gift.” Steve stumbled over his words, worried that he sounded dumb, but he wanted Bucky to understand. “It’s not because you were a war hero, even though, damn, Bucky, you nearly died serving your country in one of the few justified wars of the 20th century. It’s because you used to be a kid from Brooklyn, like me, and you did the best you could even in a crazy mythical kingdom of awfulness. You’re a good guy, Buck, I know that, and I don’t need anything fancy. I just want to help.”

“Steve,” Bucky said, and fell silent. Steve was almost glad. He hadn’t realized he would say all of that, and he wasn’t sure what he’d do if Bucky came up with any mushy stuff of his own. Instead, Bucky kissed him.

Their mouths touched, whisper-light. Bucky’s lips moved against Steve’s with a confidence that made him weak in the knees. Steve didn’t know what he’d expected—a rush to the finish, maybe—but it wasn’t this slow, relentless kissing, Steve’s face cradled between Bucky’s hands like a precious thing.

Steve groaned in the back of his throat as Bucky’s tongue slipped easily inside his mouth. Arousal sparked up his spine, and he clutched at the front of Bucky’s scratchy uniform jacket. Bucky gripped Steve’s hips, pulling their bodies close. The world spun around him like when he used to get vertigo, as though he and Bucky stood at the center of the cosmos as it swirled around them. Steve broke the kiss, his uneven breathing echoing in his ears.

Everything had gone hazy, the lines of the house smudged like charcoal. The shadows glowed. Bucky’s eyes shone with pinpricks of light, and blood-red flowerbuds twined through his hair. Steve’s fingers scrabbled against the hard shell of dark armor.

“What,” Steve said.

Bucky’s mouth tightened. “I have spent more time Underhill than I have spent here. The veils grow thin this time of year; it’s easy to slip between the worlds.”

“Are you saying I’m in another world right now?” Desire disappeared in a wash of fear.

“Not exactly. It’s more like I drew an echo of the Otherworld here. It’s become part of me now, the magic, and it calls me. Wants me to bring you, too. Craves your fire and your—are you a musician, or an artist?”

“Artist,” Steve answered, hung up on the idea that Bucky’s world craved him, like he was something tasty to eat. He shuddered. “Okay, but I’d really prefer to avoid the place that imprisoned you for nearly a century.”

Bucky smiled softly. “The King’s cruelty backfired,” he said. “You’re exactly the kind of person who draws him, strong-willed and full of heart, but I’m bound here so I don’t have to tell him about you and he can’t order me to kidnap you.”

Relief warred with embarrassment. “Sounds like the King has a type,” Steve muttered.

“The King saw darkness in me.” The starfield of Bucky’s pupils left only a thin ring of grey at the edges.

“No,” Steve said. “I know better than that.”

Bucky frowned. “The magic changed me. This is my true nature now.” The red flowers in Bucky’s hair bloomed, weaving greenery around his head. Tiny thorns under the leaves bit into Bucky’s scalp. Steve fisted his hands by his side. The casual, petty torment of it spoke volumes about Bucky’s time Underhill.

Steve’s heartbeat thrummed, unsteady in a way it hadn’t been in years. Bucky, transformed by fey magic, was as uncanny a creature as Steve could have imagined. But—Bucky remembered his family, and he kissed Steve with human messiness and passion, and he’d trembled in Steve’s arms.

”If this were your true nature, you wouldn’t want to come home,” Steve said, and galaxies wheeled in Bucky’s eyes.

“Kiss me,” Bucky said. “Draw me back to the world of men.”

Steve brought their mouths together gently. Bucky’s taste had already become familiar, a welcome and a promise. They kissed as though they had forever, the arousal kindling in Steve’s belly almost secondary to the tenderness beneath. The eerie light faded until Carter Hall became again an abandoned, run-down house, though the shadows still moved strangely in his peripheral vision.

Bucky leaned his forehead against Steve’s, eyes closed. “I am caught between two realms.” His expression was grave. “It’s not the most comfortable thing. Your body...it helps.”

“Should we—hurry, I guess?” Steve suggested.

“That shouldn’t happen again, but,” and now Bucky looked at Steve hungrily, “we could be naked.”

Steve grinned. “My clothes are easier to get out of than yours,” he said. He’d worried about figuring out Bucky’s uniform.

“Want to bet?” Bucky’s hands flew to his jacket and—despite the gloves—he had stripped it off before Steve could move.

Steve pulled off his sweater and shirt. Bucky had already gotten most of the buttons of his own shirt undone, revealing more powerful, solid muscle than Steve had ever seen on anyone but a movie star. And, a silver arm melted into Bucky’s skin, a disastrous marriage of flesh and metal.

Bucky stilled. “Change your mind?” he asked.

Steve cursed inwardly. He had better manners than to stare. He met Bucky’s eyes. “No,” he said. “Caught me off guard, is all.”

The tension in Bucky’s shoulders released incrementally. “It’s magical,” he said. “Not iron, obviously.”

“Right,” Steve said, though it hadn’t been obvious to him. He wanted to ask about it, but then he realized it was unlikely to be a good memory. Bucky had been hurt enough; Steve wouldn’t pry.

Bucky took off his gloves and unfastened his fly, watching Steve all the while. It was as deliberate as a striptease with none of its playfulness; Bucky emerged from his uniform like removing a suit of armor, a revelation of his body for Steve alone. Steve barely kept himself from reaching out for him. At last, Bucky was bare before him. His cock stood, rose-tipped and perfect, between thighs so thick Steve had to lick lips gone dry.

Bucky gestured towards Steve’s jeans with a grin. “Need help?”

Steve nodded, even though he wasn’t sure how Bucky could possibly find Steve’s slim body appealing compared to his own. Bucky inched down Steve’s zipper with careful urgency, as if he wanted to touch Steve as much as Steve wanted to be touched. Bucky drew Steve’s jeans past the swell of his ass and stopped, his metal hand curled around Steve’s hipbone. It was cooler than the other one, but it wasn’t cold, and it seemed just as flexible. Steve shivered.

“You cold?” Bucky asked.

“Not exactly,” Steve said wryly. He noticed the chill in the air, but it was Bucky’s fingertips below the waistband of his jeans that made goosebumps rush across his skin. Bucky brushed his other hand through the pale hair on Steve’s belly and Steve needed to be naked now. Having no suave way to get undressed, he shoved his jeans and underwear down and away. He’d never been naked in front of another man like this, with his cock hard and heavy, and shyness crept over him until Bucky pulled him close.

Bucky kissed him without hesitation, protective and greedy all at once. Something fragile blossomed in Steve, something he didn’t dare look at too closely. Bucky bent down to nuzzle where Steve’s neck met his shoulder and Steve arched into it, splaying his fingers across the firm, smooth muscles of Bucky’s back.

“You smell good,” Bucky said. His mouth continued to travel across Steve’s skin, biting behind his ear, in the hollow of his neck. Bucky’s size, his strength, and his effortless grace had distracted Steve all night; that had done nothing to prepare him for the flex of Bucky’s arms around him, the heat of him radiating against Steve. It made him almost delirious with anticipation. He clutched at Bucky, and his fingertips brushed the back of Bucky’s shoulder. Pitted skin ridged under his fingers. They both froze.

Steve snatched his hand away, the motion unbalancing him enough that only Bucky’s reflexes kept them upright. “I’m sorry, I won’t touch it again,” Steve said at the same time that Bucky said, “You can touch it.”

Steve failed to stifle an uncomfortable laugh and Bucky’s lips quirked. Steve touched the scar carefully, mapping how it traversed his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to the metal and Bucky hissed air through his teeth.

“Does it hurt?” Steve asked.

“No,” Bucky said. “But no one...it’s not a thing to kiss.”

Steve rested his cheek against the metal. “You’re a thing to kiss, and it’s a part of you,” he said. “But I want to kiss a lot of other places, too.”

Steve couldn’t read Bucky’s expression but he figured he’d screwed up. Did Bucky think Steve was weird for being okay with his arm? If okay was even the word. Steve would happily strangle anyone involved in mutilating Bucky’s beautiful body. The damage they’d done to Bucky upset Steve, but the arm itself didn’t repel him.

“Like where?” Bucky said at last, and when Steve looked up Bucky had a ghost of that crooked grin. Steve didn’t know if having sex for sorcerous reasons meant that he should just lie back and think of England or what, but he wanted to touch Bucky so bad, to erase every touch that had pained Bucky over the last century. He wanted it with a ferocity that surprised him.

“Here,” Steve said, and kissed Bucky’s collarbone. “And here,” one flat brown nipple, then the other, “and here—” he bent to kiss Bucky’s stomach. The butterfly wings of nerves fluttered in his belly. He’d only sucked off one guy so far, quick and furtive in the back room at a party. This felt different, like it would be an honor to give Bucky pleasure.

Steve went to his knees. “And here?” he asked.

Bucky said nothing, but he ran his thumb across Steve’s lips. Steve darted his tongue across the rough whorl of his thumbprint and Bucky’s breath hitched. He didn’t move, clearly leaving it up to Steve. Steve leaned forward to inhale the dark, earthy scent. When he wrapped his hand around the base and took the head of Bucky’s cock between his lips Bucky’s breath went all shaky. Steve drew him inside, alternating strong pulls with swirls of his tongue until Bucky’s thighs quivered and Steve forgot all about mystical ramifications and mythic symbolism; he wanted Bucky to lose himself in Steve’s mouth.

Bucky tugged at Steve’s hair. “You’re driving me crazy, come here.” Steve released him reluctantly. Bucky dragged him to his feet, kissed him and kissed him. Steve’s skin heated and his pulse beat out a demand for more. Bucky cupped Steve’s ass, drawing him effortlessly to his toes, and ground their bodies together. Steve whimpered. They weren’t kissing as much as trading moans between their mouths.

“It’s been so long,” Bucky ground out. “Can I—”

Steve didn’t know what Bucky was asking to do. It didn’t matter. “Yes, anything—”

Without another word, Bucky knelt. Steve could only draw in a quick, startled breath before Bucky swallowed him down. Everything spun around him again. It wasn’t the weirdness from earlier, though, just Bucky’s mouth stretched around Steve’s cock, looking up at him like he’d given Bucky the world. Bucky drew sounds from Steve that he hadn’t known he could make, until Steve had to frantically pushed his head away. “We’d better...”

Bucky’s gaze went dark. “One of us has to take it for it to count, right?”

“I think so,” Steve said. He tried to pull his thoughts together, not an easy feat while staring at Bucky’s pink, swollen mouth. In Steve’s book they’d had sex already, but Bucky might not think so. Not to mention the older ways of thinking which fueled the spell they hoped to satisfy. “The spell is probably rooted in ownership and procreation, which means...” He stuttered to a halt when Bucky deliberately licked his lips. “Christ.”

“Go on,” Bucky said. “Enlighten me with your theories.” He batted his eyelashes in affected coquettishness. Steve laughed. It was a bit ridiculous to be pontificating when Bucky knelt inches from his cock.

“You know what I mean. We can’t procreate, obviously, but I think it will trick the spell if the, uh, mechanics are the same.”

Bucky grinned. “Mechanics. Steve, God, you’re adorable.”

Steve rolled his eyes at Bucky’s teasing. He and Peggy had been thorough in their explorations, for chrissake, you’d think he could talk about it.

“It’s a universal force,” Bucky said. “Sex, I mean. It fuels creativity, even if it doesn’t make babies, so I reckon you’re right.” He stood. “Sounds like it could be either one of us, then.”

Steve raised his brows. Having Bucky on his knees had provided compelling evidence that Bucky wasn’t as straight as Steve had thought, but he’d assumed Bucky would want to top. Was he offering what Steve thought he was offering?

“Yeah,” Steve said.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Bucky said, “but I really want to be inside you. That okay?”

“God, yes,” Steve said. “But…oh, crap.” He covered his face with his hands. “I don’t have anything.” And they should have discussed safer sex much earlier in the course of this adventure. What had Bucky gotten up to during the war? Did the Fair Folk even get STDs? He looked through his fingers at Bucky.

Bucky gave him a slow, scorching smile, and bent over to rummage in the pocket of his uniform. Seeing how the long line of Bucky’s legs peaked at the cleft of his ass tempted Steve to change his mind about whose cock went where.

Bucky showed Steve a small square packet. “Standard issue,” Bucky said. “Guess I was thinking ahead last time I wore this uniform.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little past its expiration date?” Steve asked.

“Do I look like I’ve aged?” Bucky responded.

He didn’t, however much the soul behind his eyes showed the weight of his time away.

“I haven’t worn this uniform since the King peeled me out of it in 1944, and it’s more pristine than I’ve ever seen it. This condom has been hermetically sealed by magic all this time, I’m certain.”

That would have to be good enough. “So, uh. How…?”

“Why don’t you lie down,” Bucky said.

Steve created a little nest out of their clothes. Once finished, he turned to see Bucky staring at him with half-lidded eyes. He’d given Bucky the same view that had so distracted Steve a minute ago. He blushed all the way down his chest.

Steve settled himself on his back. Bucky knelt between his legs, looking down at him with something like wonder. “You’re beautiful,” he said.

Steve shrugged. “I’m kind of cute, I guess,” he said. “But nothing like what you must have seen in the Court.”

“The nobles of the Dark Court are beautiful like sculptures, this impossible beauty that masks their foulness. You’re more beautiful than any of them, warm and brave.” Bucky smiled, tilting his head with a boyish charm that did nothing to lessen the hunger in his eyes. “And the way your hips fit in my hands is goddamned perfect.”

Steve froze. God, the things Bucky said; Steve wanted more than anything to believe him. Bucky licked into Steve’s mouth and he gave himself over to the frantic, wet heat of it. Their hips rolled together and Steve groaned. He fell into a rhythm without thought, the sensations so intense that he might come from just that.

“I gotta stop,” Bucky said, his breath ragged. “You’ve got me so close.”

“Me too,” Steve said. He didn’t want to stop, didn’t want even a centimeter of space between them, but dawn approached. For the first moment of this whole thing he resented the circumstances. He lay under the sky, in a ruin bathed in starlight, with the most handsome man he’d ever met. He wanted to take his time.

Steve smiled at Bucky. “Come here,” he said, and patted the ground next to him. “The stars are out.”

Bucky lay facing Steve. “It’s fitting that they shine for this.” Only the quirk of his mouth kept Steve from taking him far too seriously.

Steve reached out to trace the angle of Bucky’s jaw, the strong line of his brows. He wanted to draw all the ways he’d seen Bucky tonight: the remote, fey warrior, the laughing Brooklyn boy, and most of all, the man who looked at Steve with wide, stormy eyes.

Steve let the raw lust recede. He ran his hands over Bucky’s chest, his hips, his back, sensual rather than tantalizing. His fingers learned the details of Bucky’s form, committing them to memory. Bucky leaned into it. Steve wondered if anyone had touched Bucky with kindness in the last seventy years.

After a while, Bucky went breathless and silent, trembling under Steve’s hands, his eyes squeezed closed. Before Steve could decide what to do, Bucky rolled forward, pressed Steve onto his back, and began a winding, tortuous path down Steve’s body. He touched Steve everywhere, with a soldier’s focused precision and an unexpected intensity. Bucky followed his hands with his mouth, biting at Steve’s nipples and sucking a hot mark into the skin beside them. It stung but Steve didn’t care; he wanted Bucky’s mark on him. Bucky pressed kisses into Steve’s concave belly and the crease of his thigh. He lifted Steve’s leg over his shoulder. Steve shivered, spread open and vulnerable.

"Fuck, look at you,” Bucky said, and put his face between Steve’s legs.

Steve cried out at the delicious, filthy pleasure of Bucky’s mouth against such sensitive skin. Bucky licked at him until Steve, half-crazed, lost track of everything but the wet glide of Bucky’s tongue, every nerve winding taut but not enough, not nearly enough...

“Bucky, please.”

Bucky pulled back, breathing hard, his chest heaving. He looked wrecked, his skin flushed and his pupils blown.

“I will, I will, just let me—“ Bucky pressed the fingers of his flesh hand against Steve’s hole, frowned. “I need some slick,” he said. “If you’d done this before, I might could do it with spit, but I don’t want to hurt you.”

Steve’s thoughts moved sluggishly. He’d had toys up there, it would be fine. If Bucky didn’t fuck him soon he might implode. “I can do it,” Steve said.

Bucky shook his head. “No way. I ain’t takin’ a virgin that way. Maybe we should switch places?” He kept stroking, dipping a fingertip inside and retreating to circle the outer rim. Steve made a sound he refused to call a whine and arched his back for more but Bucky kept it gentle and shallow. Steve couldn’t stay still, wanted to impale himself on those maddening fingers.

“Bucky, f-fuck—” With profound relief, Steve remembered he carried lotion to keep the cold from chapping his hands. “Backpack, left pocket—” he gasped out.

Bucky darted over to Steve’s pack and returned faster than Steve would have believed possible. Finally, thank God, Steve felt pressure and then the unfamiliar sensation of someone else’s fingers moving inside him. It burned a little, but it wouldn’t for long. He opened to the slow, glorious slide of Bucky’s fingers.

“C’mon, Bucky, I want you in me, I want you so much.” His voice cracked halfway through. The look on Bucky’s face, _Jesus_.

Bucky took his hand away to slide on the condom. Steve’s stifled noise of protest went sharp and high-pitched as Bucky lined himself up and pressed forward. Steve kept breathing, the stretch intense but so, so good. When Bucky pushed inside Steve they both groaned.

Bucky tilted Steve’s hips upwards; that helped. “You feel amazing,” Bucky murmured. He eased his cock into Steve an inch at a time until both of them were sweaty and shaking. Steve rocked up against him, kissing a little but mostly panting.

“There you go,” Bucky said. Steve tucked himself against Bucky’s collarbone and held on as Bucky started to move. He kept the pace steady, thrusting methodically as he worked Steve open. Steve could tell that Bucky was holding back, all that raw power restrained while he drove Steve out of control.

“Ah, God—give me more, I can take it,” Steve said.

Bucky made a rough noise like a growl and fucked him harder, letting Steve’s moans set the pace. Bucky’s mouth returned to his, slick and soft while he pressed Steve down hard. Steve’s cock rubbed against Bucky’s stomach as their bodies crashed together. Steve’s skin went tingly, the rush of pleasure spiraling from his ass to his cock and throughout his whole body.

“Look at me,” Bucky said softly. “Let me see you.”

No one had ever looked at Steve like this, warm and desperate, as if Bucky saw to the core of him and desired it all. A small, quiet yearning within Steve eased. Everything intensified, each sensation winding him closer to orgasm, but the sharp pleasure of it expanded, diffuse and ecstatic, until the borders between Steve and Bucky blurred. Bucky slowed, his eyes shining like a veil of clouds over the sun. The intimacy of it ached. Steve struggled to keep his eyes open when he wanted to throw his head back and howl.

“I’m gonna—” Steve panted, “oh, fuck, I’m gonna—”

“Yeah,” Bucky breathed. He buried himself so deep it sent bright flares of pleasure darting up Steve’s spine with every stroke. Steve bit down on Bucky’s bicep and keened, his cock spurting hot between their bodies. Bucky’s noises sounded harsh, primal, almost painful, and then Bucky was coming hard enough that Steve felt it even through the condom. It went on for a long time, Bucky thrusting unevenly until he collapsed, shuddering, on top of Steve.

Bucky pinned Steve to the ground with his weight for not nearly long enough before pulling away. His coiled, watchful tension had returned, but his eyes remained soft.

“Wow,” Steve said at last. He had a goofy, endorphin-loopy smile, he knew it. He let Bucky see it.

Bucky ducked his head, so clearly a classic “aww, shucks,” that Steve nearly laughed. Except that Bucky’s smile didn’t have that telltale glint of humor; he actually looked shy. When was the last time someone had been awed by Bucky’s body like this? A thread of anger wound itself through Steve’s post-coital haze. He hated how terrible Bucky’s life had been for so long.

“Thanks.”

Steve cleared his throat. “You made me feel really good,” he said. He hoped Bucky thought of his body as skilled at pleasure as it was at war but he didn’t speak it aloud. Steve rested, warm, sated, and dangerously smitten; he didn’t want to ruin the mood by invoking the shadow of Bucky’s captivity.

“Me too. I—” Bucky stopped mid-sentence, swallowed. He brushed his dark hair from where it had fallen in his eyes. “Yeah. It felt good.”

Steve didn’t know what else to say. They’d spent hours in easy conversation and then had some of the most mind-blowing sex of his life; he hadn’t expected awkwardness afterwards.

Bucky broke the silence. “Look, even if you don’t make it on All Hallow's Eve—”

“Aw, Buck, come on.”

“No, hear me out. Even if you change your mind, I will never forget what you did for me.”

Steve refrained from pointing out that if he didn’t show up, Bucky wouldn’t have long to think about it. “I’ll be there.”

“And, even if you do, I won’t assume that—”

“Jeez, Bucky, shut up! I’ll be there. And I’ll be your friend no matter what. I promise. I’ll teach you everything awesome about this century.”

Bucky pulled Steve into his arms. Steve wasn’t clinging, he wasn’t, he just...held Bucky tightly, curled close in Bucky’s embrace. He held on until the wind rushed through the room and lightning flashed. He held on until his arms were empty, and he lay naked and alone in the ruin of Carter Hall.

@)--,---

Halloween night, Steve left the bright, manic mass of university students getting wild in his apartment courtyard and made his way to the crossroads Bucky had named. He wore black, with an honest-to-god silver cloak. Well, some crunchy, shiny fabric tied like a little kid’s superhero cloak, anyway, because wearing the colors of the Dark Court would make Steve invisible to them until he had to act. Steve had fastened a second layer of green fabric under it, for later. In his left pocket he carried a bag of dirt from his flowerbed, and in his right, a bottle of holy water.

He shivered as he crouched under the bridge. Bucky had said the worlds would draw close, the gates would open, and the Host would ride in New York. Even though the night had gone misty, draped with a great white wall of cloud, it was difficult to imagine that something like this could happen in the middle of a densely urban area.

He waited until the bell of a nearby church struck midnight. As the last note faded away, a sharp, discordant ring came from the bridge. The mist parted like a door and through it came a long line of riders. The horses’ red eyes shone as eerily as their jeweled bridles. The riders were lofty and stern, as impossibly beautiful as Bucky had said. White, black and silver fabrics glittered in the moonlight. Sharp bits of metal hung from the horses’ harnesses and clanked as they walked.

Steve remembered Bucky’s instructions and let the first horse pass. Its black hide gleamed in the unearthly light that surrounded the entourage. The rider stood tall and fair, with shining golden hair and a face that dazzled despite its austerity. His beauty seized at Steve, the urge to step forward powerful enough to make him sway on his feet.

Steve dug his fingernails into his palms, closed his eyes. He understood now how Bucky had fallen prey to the King—it was all Steve could do to keep from seizing the rider’s leg, begging to be taken up on the horse and into the darkness.

The King went past.

The second horse had a hide as brown as mud, its rider large and dark-haired. He wore forbidding armor, spiked and serrated, and the face visible through the helm bore scars on both sides. To Steve’s relief, he did not exert the same hypnotic draw as the King.

Steve tensed, ready to stand, as the second horse passed. The third horse was as white as milk, or the clouds on a spring day. Its rider had black and grey armor strapped to his body. He wore a black glove on his right hand while his left arm shone silver in the moonlight. His long hair streamed in the wind. Despite the mask and goggles obscuring his features, Steve recognized the Winter Soldier.

“Bucky!” Steve cried out. He ran over to the white horse, pulled Bucky down, and held him fast in his arms.

The Faerie troop surrounded him in an instant. The King rode forward, gleaming with an awful magnificence. Steve's knees tried to to bend, yearning to bow his head and accept the judgement in that piercing scrutiny. Bucky grabbed Steve's hand, hard. Steve tore his eyes away from the King and locked his legs so firmly he nearly stumbled.

“Give me the Winter Soldier and I shall give you all of the gold and silver you see here,” the King said.

“I have gold in my hair and silver in Bucky’s arm,” Steve said. “I don’t need yours.”

The King scowled. “Give me the Winter Soldier and I shall give you the jewels on my horses’ heads.”

Steve smiled. He couldn’t believe he was about to deliver such a cheesy line, but Bucky had told him to expect the King to bargain so Steve had prepared some appropriately fairytale comebacks.

“The only jewels I need shine in my true love’s eyes.”

The King stared at Steve as though flaying him open to examine his insides. He declared: “Give me my Winter Soldier, and I shall make you a hero.”

The King’s magic struck Steve like a bell, pealing out the wish of Steve’s heart into the night. He rang with it, all of his little hairs prickling. Steve would be strong and fierce, like Bucky. He could set Hodges’s gang straight without breaking a sweat. He’d sweep the campus for bullies and stalkers, protecting anyone in danger. He’d be able to dispatch villains with ease. He'd impress everyone.

No, he would be so much more: he would save lives. He would win revolutions and free enslaved peoples. He would wage peace between warring kingdoms. The King would give him a noble purpose, allow him to stop squandering his life on foolish things.

Even though he sensed the tendrils of enchantment weaving around him, he wavered in the face of that bright promise. The magic coiled, ready to fuse him with ice and alloy. _It will only hurt a moment,_ it whispered, _and you will become the finest soldier ever made. You will change the world, together, the Winter Soldier and Winter’s Shadow._

Steve saw himself and Bucky dressed in the finery of the Dark Court, ready to defend and protect the King’s people, Bucky the sword and Steve the shield. Bucky had suffered in the Court because he’d been alone; it would be different when they had each other. They’d be together, forever unaging and eternal.

A whispered sound of pain sighed through the air. Steve glanced down at the man forgotten in his arms. Bucky’s eyes bulged, a spectral hand around his neck as he tried and failed to speak.

Bucky clenched his fist, drew Steve’s eye to his left arm. It shone, dissonant and unyielding. Suddenly the King’s magic tasted of cold metal, the stench of solder filling Steve’s nose. Steve lifted his chin and straightened his spine.

“You can’t make me a hero. I’ll do it myself or not at all.” Steve tightened his hold. “Bucky doesn’t belong to you. I won’t let him go.”

The King drew himself up, his visage glacial. He pointed at Steve and a pale, icy light poured from his fingers. “How dare you think he could be yours, frail mortal? He is the monster I made him, and that is all he will ever be.”

With a great heave and twist, Bucky almost threw himself from Steve’s arms. When Steve looked down, Bucky had turned into a many-headed hydra, each with a black tongue and flat, dead eyes. The hydra’s tail lashed out, winding tight around Steve’s middle. It squeezed until spots danced in Steve’s vision. Steve held on.

“You cannot hold a creature like him. He will rend you to shreds.”

A heavy, humid breath fell against his cheek, and the open mouth of a lion filled his sight. Its huge paws enveloped Steve, claws digging in. Steve gritted his teeth as blood ran down his sides. He held on.

“He will consume you,” the King said, as calm and easy as if he’d told Steve the sun had set. The lion burst into flame. Steve’s skin seared. The flames shrank into a blazing coal that burned through the skin of his hands down to his bones. Steve screamed, but he held on.

He ran to the side of the bridge, tears streaming down his cheeks, and threw the coal into the water. He drew the holy water from his pocket, with blackened hands that trembled and shook, and sprinkled it over the river and himself. The fire went out.

Steve’s skin throbbed, suddenly unmarred and whole. Bucky climbed out of the water. His armor and finery had gone, leaving him naked. The arm remained, and Steve feared they’d failed until he saw the mark newly engraved on it: a silver star at the shoulder. Steve tore away his cloak and threw the green fabric over Bucky, shielding him. He sprinkled the garden soil in a circle around them. He took Bucky’s hand—his left hand—and together they faced the King.

The King snarled at them. “Curses upon your ill-fated countenance, and an ill death may you die, for taking away the fiercest knight of my company. You have won yourself a broken blade, you fool. May it cut you with every use, and may the wounds it gives grow foul and rot!”

“As for you, James Buchanan Barnes,” the King said, as bleak and still as marble save for the mad light in his eyes. “Had I known what now this night I see, I would have plucked out your eyes and heart and filled you with ice.”

“You tried,” Bucky said. “And failed. We stand protected by the earthen circle and blessed with holy water. You can’t touch me again.”

They stood for a long moment, the King and his former soldier, their eyes locked. At last, Bucky spoke. “Your power is over.”

He pointed to the horizon. Rosy light peeked above the clouds. The King pinned Steve with that terrible regard for one breath more, then turned his back. He rode into the mist, his troop riding swiftly behind. Steve listened until the discordant sound of metal-on-metal faded. He watched until the mist dispersed.

Steve turned to Bucky. He looked at Steve, his eyes wide and alight. “It worked,” he breathed.

“You didn’t know if it would work?” Steve asked. His hands ached, and he was chilled through and through. He’d never been so grateful to hear birdsong.

“It was a gamble, you know it was.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. He gestured towards Bucky’s arm. “I worried about what it meant, that you still had it.”

“Being in the Otherworld leaves a mark. It could have been worse.” Bucky shrugged, but Steve saw some of the familiar tenseness around his shoulders before Bucky turned to him with a teasing grin. “And there was some question about the trueness of your love.”

Steve’s chest constricted. He had no question about it. And the ritual had succeeded, which gave its own answer.

He’d never known true love, but he imagined it to be just like this: like Bucky outshone the stars and Steve’s life would be dark in his absence. Like he’d waited his whole life for Bucky already and couldn’t bear another day without him. He’d spent an embarrassing number of hours daydreaming about everything from ferocious sex to introducing Bucky to all the best movies. About holding Bucky and never having to let him go.

“Yeah.” Steve said.

He unwound his fingers from Bucky’s with reluctance. Even returned to the human world, Bucky looked every inch a fairytale knight, his long hair dawnlit and tousled. He’d pulled the cloak around himself into a deliberate, graceful wrap, though Steve could still see the strong lines of his body. The silver arm shone. 

“You’ve got some smarts, Steve,” Bucky said. “Figuring out how to make it turn out all storybook happily ever after.”

That awful feeling in Steve’s chest kept getting worse. He knew what he wanted “happily ever after” to mean, but he didn’t dare hope that Bucky would want it, too. Bucky had just gotten his life back; why would he stick with Steve once he got settled, when he had all the riches of the modern age on offer?

Steve hunched against a sudden bite of wind. Bucky couldn’t be comfortable standing naked in autumn in New York. He needed clothes, and even though Sam had agreed to let Steve’s “evicted friend” crash at their apartment for a few days, Bucky would need somewhere to stay long-term, and everything else. 

“Well, I guess we’d better get inside before someone sees us,” Steve said.

Bucky's brows furrowed. “Didn’t you say it was legal in this century?”

“Being naked in public? Nah, they still don’t let you do that.”

“No, I mean…two men, together.”

Steve blinked. Did he mean—?

Bucky gave him a long, slow smile. He leaned in, slid his hand down Steve’s arm and folded their fingers together. Steve’s heart hammered. Bucky used their joined hands to pull Steve towards him until only a breath separated their bodies, their mouths hot and close.

“I thought you could maybe show me how men can hold hands in public nowadays.”

**Author's Note:**

> O I forbid you, maidens a',  
> That wear gowd on your hair,  
> To come or gae by Carterhaugh,  
> For young Tam Lin is there.  
> There's nane that gaes by Carterhaugh  
> But they leave him a wad,  
> Either their rings, or green mantles,  
> Or else their maidenhead.
> 
> (How could I resist an idea like that?)
> 
> [ Read the rest of the Ballad of Tam Lin.](http://tam-lin.org/versions/39A.html)


End file.
